


Someone Like You

by AHumanFemale, Robin Hood (kjack89)



Series: For Me It Isn't Over [1]
Category: Law & Order: SVU
Genre: ALL THE ANGST, Angst, I'm Sorry, M/M, inspired by "someone like you" by adele, not a happily ever after
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-14
Updated: 2017-11-14
Packaged: 2019-02-02 05:12:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,584
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12720297
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AHumanFemale/pseuds/AHumanFemale, https://archiveofourown.org/users/kjack89/pseuds/Robin%20Hood
Summary: It was a stranger who spoke the name he’d spent so many years avoiding, pleasantly making small talk with a detective showing up with a warrant in his hands.  The hopeful was new to SVU and entirely unfamiliar to him, so when the man casually mentioned to Carmen that Sergeant Carisi had made Lieutenant - the top thirty in his group - the most bittersweet agony unfurled in his chest.  His breath caught, ached with the weight of it threatening to suffocate him.Sonny.





	Someone Like You

**Author's Note:**

> Angst. All the angst. The best parts of this belong solely to Robin Hood, who both encouraged me and provided anything in this worth reading.
> 
> xoxo, ahf.

The news came into his chambers early on a Thursday morning, when ice slicked every sidewalk and Rafael could hardly see through the fogged glass of his office windows.

It probably shouldn’t have.

Rafael had been on the bench for five years now, out of Manhattan SVU for six years before that.  While he and Olivia Benson still regularly met for dinner, it had been a long time since either of them had talked shop.  Now they discussed his mother’s terrorizing of the retirement community resident board, Noah’s acceptance to Yale - seemingly entirely chosen in spite, knowing full well how hard his mother’s friend had argued for Harvard - and the looming threat of old age now that middle age was firmly in the rearview for both of them.  

It was a stranger who spoke the name he’d spent so many years avoiding, pleasantly making small talk with a detective showing up with a warrant in his hands.  The hopeful was new to SVU and entirely unfamiliar to him, so when the man casually mentioned to Carmen that Sergeant Carisi had made Lieutenant - the top thirty in his group - the most bittersweet agony unfurled in his chest.  His breath caught, ached with the weight of it threatening to suffocate him.  

_ Sonny _ .

Memories of a love that was simultaneously his refuge and his mausoleum.  

It was the refuge he sought when he looked up the times for the ceremony, the mausoleum that greeted him as he pulled his wool coat tighter around his shoulders and filtered into the auditorium a week later.  Near the back, behind proud families and supportive colleagues and commanding officers.  Just a bystander, someone uninvited who turned up out of the blue to torment himself with every name called out leading up to the only one he wanted to hear. 

_ Lieutenant Dominick Carisi Jr. _

Even before his name was called, Rafael recognized him.

Knew the way he stood, slouched at rest and rigid at attention.  Even with the knowledge of so many eyes on him he stood straight and tall, every bit deserving of the honor being bestowed upon him as he accepted his new badge - a bright Lieutenant’s shield - and recited his oath again.  All the pomp and circumstance the situation called for, and Sonny Carisi had so much Catholicism in his blood that the ritual likely felt like second nature.  It was one recitation of many stored in the brilliant deductive and legal mind Rafael knew he possessed.  

Sonny was smiling even before his name was called, and Rafael recognized that, too, the sight of it as painful as if no time whatsoever had passed, and infinitely moreso to know that it wasn't directed at him anymore. That it never would again be.   
  
Rafael tore his eyes away from the other man's face, casting about for any hair out of place, any scuff on his shoes or loose thread on his dress uniform, something to allow him the hollow haven of silent gloating, the familiarity of when he would make fun of Sonny for being less well-dressed than Rafael. But his uniform was pristine, as Rafael had known it would be, and his examination had done nothing more than reminded him of how good Sonny looked in it, perhaps even better than some thirteen odd years ago when Sonny had sat next to him in a bar, the light glinting off both the polished gold buttons of his uniform and the hint of silver in his blond hair as he promised Rafael that he would keep him safe.   
  
Sonny had always kept that promise. It was Rafael, as always, who had failed.

Sonny’s hair was more gray than blond and Rafael marveled at how it suited him, glinting bright in the harsh spotlight focused on the stage.  His was too, he thought bitterly, but it only showed his age.  Never his character.  On Sonny it was strength and wisdom and the hardened steel of his spine.  On Rafael it was years, plentiful and unflattering.  Suddenly the time seems at once negligible and insurmountable.  Yesterday and a century ago simultaneously; eons since he’d last sifted that silver hair through his fingers, and yet only yesterday that Rafael had last listened to Sonny’s heartbeat drumming under his ear.   

Sonny would always be that eager detective.

Eager to work, eager to please.  

Eager to love.

Sonny would never be that eager detective again.

As he was dismissed a section of the auditorium a few rows ahead of him jumped their feet and cheered, making such a noise that the rest of the room collectively jumped in shock.  The Carisi family, undoubtedly, Rafael thought to himself and allowed himself a wistful smirk.  Dominick Sr. and Tessa were getting on in years but still managed to put up as much of a ruckus as the rest of their brood, led at the forefront by a curvy brunette in a floral dress who whistled louder than even Teresa.  She held a preschooler on her hip and stood between two older children who jumped up and down and screamed.  It took only a glance at their profile to recognize them as Sonny’s children, graceful Italian noses prominent on their faces like the rest of their relatives.  Rafael felt the air sucked out of his lungs and couldn’t help but stare.  

First at the children, who Rafael had never allowed Sonny to consider all those years ago.

At Sonny’s wife, who Rafael had always refused to meet.

At Sonny, who looked the happiest Rafael had ever seen him.

He smirked and laughed and his eyes glittered mischievously as he finished his time on the stage and walked off to the side.  He met his family and took the youngest of his children into his arms with a kiss on the cheek while the other two grabbed a leg each and hugged so tight Rafael could feel it from where he sat.  His wife, who was beautiful and younger and so clearly in love, pressed a long kiss to his lips and Sonny’s eyes stayed shut a few seconds after their lips had parted.  

_ I want to live in it just a little longer,  _ Sonny had told him all those years ago.   _ It’s always over too soon, before I’m ready.   _

He stood, heart racing.

Heart  _ breaking _ .

Sonny used to want to live in  _ them _ .

He grabbed his coat, crumpled it absently in his arms as he headed for the door.  Applause sounded again, the next name being called, and the sound was a cacophony.  A grating wall of sound that made him feel trapped.  Made him feel surrounded in this mausoleum of his own making, breathing stale air as he rotted and tried to pretend he could still smell the flowers.

Rafael realized too late that he’d forgotten to applaud. 

The door was under his fingers, cool and smooth.  Outside there would be fresh air.  Air that was cold enough to sear his lungs, sear the image of Sonny in his uniform from his mind.  In his uniform, proud and tall and so gorgeous that wanted to both live in that moment forever and die in it.  Outside, he would be able to breathe again.  Breathe the air he hadn’t shared with the woman Sonny loved now, with the children he’d so desperately wanted and Rafael had denied him.  

Outside he would be free.

Rafael looked back.  

Looked back for a last glance, for a dying wish, and instantly met blue eyes through the black of the uniformed crowd.  

Recognition first.

Then confusion.  

Then realization.  

Sonny started forward.

Applause sounded again, breaking the spell that had wound around them, and somehow Rafael found the strength to push through the doors.  He let the momentum carry him past guests scattered throughout the lobby, his footsteps echoing across the polished tile floors.  Straining wasn’t necessary to hear the ones following him but he pushed on anyway, flinging himself through the front doors of 1PP and taking his first deep lungful of frigid air.   

“Judge Barba!”

He stopped.  

Frozen in place by nothing more than an utterance of his title on lips he hadn’t seen in over a decade.  A voice that both comforted and haunted, a voice he’d heard through the thick timbre of tears and the deep groans of orgasm.  A voice that had shouted when angry, that had prayed in their darkest nights, that had only sighed in resignation when he walked out their door for the last time.

“Hey, I thought that was you,” Sonny told him, gasping quickly in the below freezing temperatures.  His cheeks had already pinked up, bringing the blue in his eyes roaring to life against the heavy black fabric of his uniform.  

“Lieutenant Carisi,” he acknowledged and Sonny grinned.  

They were over ten years ago.

They were never over at all.

“Ha.  That’s a first, I guess,” he said, chuckling.  “Doesn’t sound right even after almost a month of preparing for this thing.”

Rafael offered a small smile.  “It suits you.”

Sonny beamed.

A refuge, a mausoleum.

“So, uh, what brought you all the way over here?  You know someone getting promoted?” he asked charitably, assuming there was someone Rafael would care about enough to attend.  “Other than me, I guess.”

“Something like that.”

Realization again.  

“Ah.  I see.”

Did he though?

Could he see in Rafael’s eyes how some part of him ceased to exist when Sonny left?

Could he see how, for Rafael, the two of them had never really ended at all?

“Listen-”

“Enjoy the celebration, Carisi,” Rafael told him with a wan smile.  “You’ve earned it.”

Rafael made to leave, unfolded his coat and stepped to the side, but Sonny only turned and caught him arm.  Gentle, the long fingers hardly making an indentation in his suit jacket.  

“Come for a drink with me,” Sonny pleaded, as earnest as ever.  Too kind, too giving.  Perpetually the good man that Rafael could never have hoped to deserve.  “Come on, it’ll be great.  We can catch up.  I can tell you all the rumors I hear about Judge Barba being an insufferable hardass.”

His eyes twinkled.

Rafael could give in.  

Rafael could follow Sonny to one of their old haunts, back when they sat too close and stayed too long and could live lifetimes in a single gaze.  He could have a drink and listen to Sonny talk for hours, reminiscing about the days when he was a sycophant with a lawyer fetish and when Rafael was an insufferable hardass with a lesser office.  They could talk about Captain Benson’s latest fight with the commissioner or Rollins’ new knitting habit or the retired Fin’s third grandchild.  

It would be the warm, comforting refuge he sought.   
  
Up until the moment it wasn't.   
  
Up until the moment Sonny would glance at his watch — no longer the Apple Watch Barba mocked so many years ago when Sonny would plug it in to charge on the nightstand before they went to sleep, but some simple, understated thing that was probably a present, probably engraved with a message of love that Sonny wore close to him always — and sigh, something almost regretful in his tone as he told Barba he had to get home.   
  
Almost regretful, because as fun as drinks together would be, for Sonny it was no refuge, no escape. For Sonny, it would be a temporary flit into the past before he went home to his present. To his future. To the wife who loved him, the kids who adored him.   
  
To a life in which Rafael hadn't fit in far too long for him to still be seeking this.   
  
To a life in which Sonny didn't live with the constant missing piece of Rafael in his heart and his soul.   
  
And for Rafael, that thought was unbearable.   
  
"I'll save you the trouble," Rafael said instead, forcing a smile that he was certain looked more like a wince. "The rumors are all true."   
  
Sonny laughed, bright and warm, and Rafael leaned in to the sound without even meaning to. "Fine," he relented, without putting up an argument, almost certainly because he had never intended on arguing.   
  
Sonny had stopped fighting for Rafael a long time ago.   
  
Rafael hesitated, then held his hand out for Carisi to shake. "It was good to see you, Lieutenant," he said, the words both truth and utterly lies.   
  
"You too," Sonny said, shaking his hand, the gesture lacking any intimacy beyond collegial. Beyond what Rafael had been aiming for all those years ago and now regretted to his core at having achieved. "I appreciate you coming."   
  
"Yes, well," Rafael started, though he didn't have anything to say to that. Instead, he shrugged on his coat. "I'm certain I will see you around, Carisi."

With that, he turned, started walking away from his past, no matter how much it ripped his heart into shreds to again walk away.   
  
"Rafael."   
  
Rafael froze, but didn't turn back, the sound of his first name on Sonny's lips after all these years both an unquenchable pain and a soothing salve.    
  
"Thank you."   
  
Rafael didn't know what Sonny was thanking him for: thanking him for coming, for sharing in this moment with him? Thanking him for still thinking of him after all these years? Or thanking him, perhaps, for setting him free, for allowing him to follow this trajectory that had given him everything he had ever wanted?   
  
“You’re welcome,” Rafael said, still without turning. “Stay safe, Sonny.”   
  
Stay safe. Stay whole. Stay loved.   
  
Stay everything Rafael had ever wanted for him.   
  
And everything it had taken Rafael breaking his own heart for Sonny to achieve.   
  
“You too,” Sonny said, and Rafael closed his eyes, desperate at the knowledge that Sonny was trying to prolong this, even for seconds more. “Don’t lie to me and tell me that judges don’t get threats.”   
  
“They do,” Rafael said. “But now that you’re a lieutenant, at least you don’t have to coordinate my security detail this time.”   
  
Sonny laughed. “I still would, you know,” he said. “If you needed me too.”   
  
Sonny would.   
  
Rafael knew that.   
  
Rafael also knew, just as he knew going to a bar and reminiscing was a terrible idea, that even discussing the thought of a security detail with Sonny was a terrible idea. If only because it allowed those final shreds of hope to linger where they should have been snuffed out years ago. “Tempting,” he said. “But I think I’ll let the patrol cops handle it.” He hesitated. “Go back inside to your family before you freeze to death.”   
  
Sonny laughed again, and waved, and turned around to head back into the building. “Still ordering me around after all these years,” he called teasingly over his shoulder.

Rafael wondered just how many orders of his Sonny would be willing to take.   
  
It was a thought guaranteed never to reach a satisfactory conclusion, and Rafael watched with nothing short of a wistful longing clenching his chest as Sonny disappeared back inside 1PP.   
  
Only when he was out of sight did Rafael finally leave, turning the collar of his coat up against the wind before stuffing his hands in his pockets in a vain attempt to brace himself from the cold, even though he knew it would do nothing to warm him.   
  
The only person who could ever warm him was back in 1PP, back with his family, back where he belonged.   
  
And the cold Rafael felt had nothing to do with winter.

  
  


**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Someone Like You [Podfic]](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13479933) by [monstrous_eliza (ships_to_sail)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ships_to_sail/pseuds/monstrous_eliza)




End file.
